


He's Only Semi-Feral

by myrmeraki



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pet Adoption, Poker, Toby literally just adopts a cat in this one, in the shadow of two gunmen references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmeraki/pseuds/myrmeraki
Summary: Maybe, after he showered off the grime, it would be time to consider the reasons he had a cat buried in a towel and sitting in his bathroom sink. He could hear it yowling and whining as he showered as fast as possible, letting out a slew of cursive curses when soap gets in his eyes.The first, Toby thought as he picked the cat up and held its wrapped body back to his chest, was Rosslyn.In which Toby adopts a cat and there's some sweet friendship moments as a result.
Relationships: Some C. J. Cregg/Toby Ziegler if you squint
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	He's Only Semi-Feral

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a while ago prompted by my friends and what was supposed to be just a cute little thing that after a handful of rewrites turned into a nearly 10k painful whirlwind (on my end) so enjoy! drop a kudos and leave a comment if you enjoyed, they're my lifeblood <3

Toby did not want to touch on the several reasons he was currently rain-soaked and angry at midnight on a Friday. He did not want to think about the water in his shoes, or his umbrella left in the corner of his office, or the squirming wriggling thing under his coat.

  
Indeed the only thing he wanted to focus on was the shower and the beer waiting for him at home. He would even indulge himself in fantasizing about the seven whole hours of sleep that he’d get tonight. That is, provided this thing stopped doing it’s level best to destroy him and his suit.

  
“This will go best for the both of us if you calm down,” Toby said and shifted its body under his jacket. The rain was, for its part, letting up and he only had a block or so to go under he could surrender to his apartment and its mediocre water pressure that would at this point feel like a five-star hotel.

  
The thing made a whining noise and continued to boldly claw at his shirt. It seemed it was indifferent to Toby’s efforts to keep it alive and was keen on increasing his discomfort at every turn possible.  
  
“You’ll thank me for this once we get home, trust me.”  
  
The thing growled.  
  
“Or not.”  
  
Toby kept an arm clasped to his chest, pinning the creature in place as he unlocked his door. This proved easier said than done, and he ended up kicking the door open as the key finally caught. Every movement from here on out would be done with exasperation and as little kinetic energy as possible. It had been a long week punctuated by a long day, all of it filled with the expected stressors and moments that made Toby want to blow his brains out in a bloody mess over the oval office carpet. To top it all off, they’d been having bouts of fall rain, a chilly mess that stuck to everything it touched and left the air around them humid and freezing at the same time. It was a season designed to make congressmen irritable and drive the white house staff mad.  
  
All in all, a subpar week in a generally subpar rut they’d been stuck in. The soft chaos after Rosslyn had passed months ago but was close enough to remind all of them how close they had come to truly shattering. Sometimes Toby woke and thought he had to call the hospital, a gut-wrenching lurch to the phone propelled by nothing but memory and adrenaline and mixed association to get up and do something. Sometimes he caught himself looking too long at Josh, waiting in between speeches and meetings and stormy arguments to see if he would fall apart. He knew now the feeling of blood over his hands would never really go away. The stains would just grow fainter.  
  
Toby hung up his soaked coat, nudged off his soaked shoes, and peeled off his soaked socks. All the while he hugged the creature to his chest. It continued to yowl.  
  
“You’re really not going to like this next bit,” Toby sighed.  
  
The cat was small, smaller than it should have been at its age. Its ears looked like a too-big parodied replica sitting on its head. Toby assumed it was some kind of orange-brown when it wasn’t covered in rainwater and dirt and shivering in every bone.  
  
Toby got the kitchen sink running to a temperature that he hoped would not be too uncomfortably warm or cold and filled the sink with a few centimeters. He owed morning Toby a thank-you for actually doing all the dishes and cleaning the sink, otherwise, this whole painful debacle would be prolonged by trying to wash spoons while keeping the cat from leaping away from him and getting lost. Toby got a sense that things this little were meant to be watched closely, to be kept in neat cages or crates for fear they may get squashed or lost in the very expanse of a world that was bigger than them.  
  
“I suppose I can’t convince you to, come quietly?” Toby directed the question at the cat, its small claws sunk into the front of his shirt. The cat growled as he tried to pull it away. It was so keen on trying to scratch him to death by a million cuts back on the street, but now that Toby was desperately trying to get it off of him so he could get on with his life it would not move.  
Toby did what he did, what he’d always done and currently did for a living: he pushed back. He undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt until the cat was left clinging to the fabric instead of himself. Once again it growled. He’d not known a lot of cats through his life to growl.  
  
The cat stubbornly clung to the fabric even as Toby shouldered off the shirt, so he dropped the whole lump into the sink. That shirt was destined for the dry cleaners anyway, and soaked, so what was some more water going to do? The cat was very angry about this development. It scratched and leaped to get out of the sink, and Toby met its efforts with an open hand.  
  
“I’ve just gone twelve rounds on a credit risk management bill with investors from Oregon. You’ll have to do better than that one.”  
  
The cat, to its credit, does not try to leap out but made its discomfort clear as Toby scrubbed the dirt from its fur. The water in the sink turned from clear to muddy brown, and the cat turns to a lighter orange that promised further color change once it was dried.  
  
Toby drained the sink and opted to just leave his shirt there. It was ruined well enough. He took the still dripping cat to the bathroom and wrapped it tight in a sort of burrito shape. It was still shivering as he brought the towel up and rubbed at the wet spots in and around its ears. It really had way too big ears. Toby knew enough about animals growing up feeding the strays in Brooklyn and wandering through the zoo so many decades ago, and he knew all signs pointed to this cat not surviving the next few days unless he paid very close attention to it.  
  
Maybe, after he showered off the grime, it would be time to consider the reasons he had a cat buried in a towel and sitting in his bathroom sink. He could hear it yowling and whining as he showered as fast as possible, letting out a slew of cursive curses when soap gets in his eyes.  
  
The first, Toby thought as he picked the cat up and held its wrapped body back to his chest, was Rosslyn. CJ had asked, in her sharply disbelieving voice and her head tilt, about the psychological aftermath. And to Toby's genuine credit, at the time, there were none. There was no meta-cognition, no breakdowns, no falling on his sword. At least, not on his part.  
  
Sam was for a long time in a suppressed state of being. He did the morning shows, he wrote the speeches, he talked the talk and threw himself so hard into working the dust watered in Toby's eyes. But Toby had seen him, been with him on the street and in the ambulance and in the hospital room. It was just as easy as it was horrifying to see Sam fall so utterly into pieces over Josh.  
  
Josh was always, well, Josh, in that his moods fluctuated like that of a teenage girl living through her parent's divorce, except his emotional outbursts were less passive-aggressive habits and more fully aggressive tendencies. Josh was wound up like a spring-toy, Toby could see it, and try as he might he couldn't breakthrough. All he could see sometimes when he looked at Josh was blood and the weight of his slack neck falling into Toby's hands. Try as he might Toby can't help but think about what would have happened if he were faster. If he looked for Josh with a little more urgency, and if those seconds wasted swallowing down his heart with the bile had been taken back.  
  
So when he heard something like a meow, something like a cry, something like a siren coming from an alley, his brain thought twice and his feet were fed up with his delays. The cat-the kitten really, it was probably older than it looked but still so shatteringly small-was under a sopping wet cereal box next to a dumpster. Toby couldn't leave it. He couldn't turn away from it. He couldn't fail him again.  
  
And reason two was-  
  
Well, reason two had a lot to do with Congresswoman Watts and 1998.  
  
And now he sat on his living room couch, comfortable in loose pajamas, a beer in one hand and a now only slightly-damp kitten in the other. The thing wouldn't stay still. Toby would have let it roam around if he wasn't so terrified for its state of being. This thing needed to be in a hamster ball or constantly watched so it didn't get swallowed up by the sheer enormity of the world in comparison to its fragile bones. So Toby let it grip and growl and scratch at his forearm. He let it walk across his legs and run away from him until it got to the edge of the couch, a cliff face for something its size.  
  
It was near one a.m. and Toby still had no idea what to do with it. He gave it little pieces of lunchmeat, a tiny dish of water, and put some shredded newspaper into an open-faced cardboard box. He hoped to whoever was listening that when he woke up he wouldn't have to add 'clean up cat shit' to his list of things to do to help this guy perform the simple act of staying alive.  
  
The cat tromped to the other end of the couch, fur standing on end and glaring at him. It occurred to Toby that cats like these that were born on the streets and lived in alleys were probably not the fondest or most used to human people trampling all over them. Toby frowned and wiggled a hand at it. In response, it drew up its shoulders and hissed at him. Now that it had been, as best as Toby could attempt, washed and fed it was much bolder in its outbursts. It scratched at the couch's fabric, rolled around its curves, and right before Toby tried to move it and its makeshift litterbox into the bedroom, it leaped off the couch and ran behind the fridge.  
  
"If you have to electrocute and kill yourself back there could you do me the courtesy of not frying the fridge?" Toby tapped the ground and an orange limb with a white paw swiped at him, claws out. He could see the glow of green eyes in that abyss of dust and darkness.  
  
"I've got pizza in there I was looking forward to eating," Toby continued. The kitten pounced on his hands, claws into flesh, and Toby grabbed it with his other hand. The kitten twisted around and growled as Toby held it from the skin of its back like a mother cat carting around her still blind young.  
  
It turns out, he didn't even need to worry about sleep, because he didn't get much of it. The kitten was determined to claw its way out of his room, yowling and growling at the closed door. Once it learned Toby refused to indulge it, it spent hours running around the expanse, scratching at the blinds, climbing up the bed, knocking down picture frames and pens. Toby gave up on trying to get up and stop it by four a.m and still managed to get a wink in before his alarm went off. If you added up all the minutes and it totaled to a few hours that counted, right?  
  
"You are exactly why I did not want children," Toby said. The cat was sound asleep under his desk, showing no sign of the violence and havoc it had wrought only hours before.  
  
He did the math in his head as he got dressed and watered the plants. Toby's usual company included slightly-wilted rosemary, a few spider plants, and a hungry pothos that was quickly taking over the living room bookshelf. Remnants of domestic femininity back when Andy took in orphaned plants at local gardening and hardware stores, coming home every other week with a new wilted child to nurse back to greenness. Toby didn't have anywhere near a green thumb, but he'd kept these guys alive well enough and fresh rosemary made cocktails just a little more exciting.  
  
The cat stretched and meowed in awakening, wasting no time in running out of the room and tearing apart the kitchen.  
  
"Well, I'm glad one of us slept well," Toby grumbled.  
  
He needed coffee. He needed to get to work. He needed to take this violent whirlwind of orange fur and claws to the vet and figure out what exactly to do with it.  
  
"Yeah?" CJ called exactly forty-three seconds after Toby paged her. The sun was just starting to rise, turning the sky outside his window to a lighter grey.  
  
"I'm coming in late today, I've got some," Toby trailed off and paused, "Some stuff to take care of."  
  
The cat was loudly chewing more deli meat, purring, and meowing at the same time. It ate with its back to the corner, pulling the bowl with its paws and teeth.  
  
"Anything I need to be concerned about?" Toby can already feel CJ jumping through the hoops, checking every possible situation, and preparing for both the best and the worst.  
  
"No, no it's just some-" Toby stopped again. The cat had tipped the bowl over and was attempting to stick its head under it.  
  
"Personal things I've got to wrap up, don't worry about it."  
  
"You sound frazzled," CJ said.  
  
"I'm not." Toby lifted the bowl up and the cat jumped backward at his hand. He couldn't help the chuckle that followed.  
  
"If you're gonna be late the least you can do is get me a coffee too," CJ said. There was a muffled "Thanks, Carol," slightly away from the phone.  
  
"I'm not stopping for brunch, I've got things to do," Toby argues.  
  
"If you say so."  
  
"I'll see you."  
  
CJ hung up the phone.  
  
Toby pictured the already slowly rotating engine of the white house churning to life, an hour or so before the regular early-risers and around the same time the graveyard shifters turned home. Faces sleepy and coffee brewing throughout the building, someone somewhere had burnt their tongue.  
  
And here he was, taking this tiny cat in a cardboard box with a towel over it to the nearest vet.  
  
"Well, it's a boy," the vet said. She had dark skin and her hair was tied back with a large pink scrunchie printed with animal paws. Toby almost wanted to ask if they were supposed to be cats or dogs. His cat- the cat, rather- seemed to like her even less than Toby. It had become twice its usual size with its fur standing up, and Toby could have sworn it was glaring at her. The vet, Diana, wore gloves as it scratched at her. If not for the cuts on his hand Toby would find its movements funny. His movements.  
  
"No chip, probably no shots either. He's six or seven weeks old." The vet pulled at her ears and the kitten growled again.  
  
"He's quite angry with me," Toby said.  
  
"You just found him on the street?"  
  
Toby looked at his hands, tilting his wrist to see his watch but not really reading at the time. To think that not twenty-four hours ago Toby thought this would be an easy weekend.  
  
"Yeah," he sighed.  
  
"Lucky you did when you did. Another day, a few more hours even and this guy might not have made it." She rubbed the kitten's head and he let her for a second before lunging at her. Diana pulled her hand away just in time. "He's got fleas and probably some kind of worm or parasite, poor guy."  
  
"Yeah," Toby said again. He couldn't stop looking at the cat. It was so incomprehensibly small on the folded towel, smaller still on the metal table. He pictured the vaccines, the surgeries, the needles and syringes almost as big as him. He pictured the doctors trained for the in and outs of this animal's body cutting into him for spaying. He pictured the tubes in his mouth and the stitches over his gut and sending him home, alone. Sirens and gunshots and sitting there bleeding, alone. And then-  
  
"You can leave him with us, we'll treat him for the worms and then pass him off to the shelter."  
  
"I'm-" Toby rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, "I'm sorry, what?"  
  
"Well, we can treat him for the worms and give him a bath for the fleas, but he's too little to get spayed right now," Diana explained. As she talked she moved her hands in gesture, and the cat followed her movements intently. He shuffled his legs in a way that Toby assumed yet knew clear as anything meant he was going to jump.  
  
Toby reached out and placed a hand on his back. The kitten jumped in surprise and turned on him with a bounce, and Toby felt something pull at the corner of his lips.  
  
"He has to go to the shelter?" Toby ran a cautious hand over the kitten's fur. His whole body was only slightly larger than his hand and Toby could feel the kitten's spine under his fingertips. He tensed and let out a soft growl. Toby took it as a sign and moved his hand away.  
  
"Or you could get him registered, chipped, write up the adoption papers and take him home tomorrow?" Diana smiled at him, eyebrows raised. The pawprint scrunchie started to make more and more sense.  
  
Toby couldn't have a cat. He never wanted a cat. Plenty of people liked cats, and they were fine by him. The cat would knock down his books and cups and scratch his curtains and probably wake him up crying in the middle of the night.  
  
And Toby couldn't leave him. He couldn't leave him any less than he could ignore him last night in the alley. He couldn't just let him leave, he couldn't let him die.  
  
"I'll come back tomorrow. Is there, uh, anything I need to bring?"  
  
Diana took his number, Toby paid the bill in the front without thinking twice, and he found himself looking at litter boxes and kitten food brands on his computer when he was supposed to be working with Sam on a speech on economic mobility.  
  
"We have to mention financial literacy," Sam said for the third time that hour.  
  
Toby sipped at his coffee, bitter and cold and almost completely unenjoyable. He clicked his pen and stabbed the legal pad in front of him, filled with smeared black ink and more strikethroughs than full words. If he let his eyes grow tired and glazed the ink resembled a weather map hurricane.  
  
"We can't mention it," Toby said, "The Republicans will come down on it as another federal education ploy and liberals will think we're insulting them." Toby scribbled a few words and then crossed them out again. Sam's page was just as filled with smeared ink.  
  
"We're not insulting them," Sam fought.  
  
"We are insinuating that not only are Americans poor, but they are accordingly because they are stupid!"  
  
Toby swallowed the last of his coffee and slammed the pen down. Sam frowned in that small, almost charming kicked puppy look of his. It was the look he held when he knew he was right, and Toby was wrong, but this was the white house, and this was politics, and this was walking on the razor's edge until your feet split open and hoping all that blood amounted to something.  
  
"They're a lot of things, but they're not stupid," Sam mumbled. "We're not putting them in the slow English class, we're giving them what they need to-" Sam waved his hand in the air and trailed off. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, and Toby could almost see the smudged finger marks on the lenses.  
  
"To, pull themselves up by their bootstraps?" Toby smirked.  
  
"Not like that. But why not?" Sam said with such hopeful conviction Toby was almost convinced. Sam could sell anything, but not because he was good at faking it. Sam wasn't a con man; Sam believed.  
  
Toby decided he was done with the speech for a while. It was Saturday, it was lunchtime, and he had a cat to pick up tomorrow. How did he come to this?  
  
"I'm breaking for lunch. We'll get it outlined by the end of the day," Toby said. Sam nodded and tossed his notepad on Toby's desk, already calling out to find CJ or Josh to get their orders.  
  
"You wanna get a salad?"  
  
Absolutely not, said Toby's heart. Please, dear G-dash-D, yes, said his actual physical heart.  
  
"Sure," He sighed.  
  
"What kind?"  
  
"Just- I don't know, Sam, I don't know the breeds of salad. Something with lettuce and not a lot of cheese."  
  
"Sure," Sam said again before ducking out of his office. There was a faint yelling of "Josh!" across the office. Toby found himself pushing in his chair and standing outside of CJ Cregg's door.  
He tapped on the wood, twice, before opening it.  
  
"Can you guess what the second major export of Cambodia is?" CJ turned up from her desk.  
  
"Textiles?" Toby guessed and leaned on the frame of her doorway, half in and half out. He rubbed absently at the ink stains on his fingers.  
  
"No, that's the first. The second is timber." CJ placed her glasses on top of her head and closed one of many multicolored folders.  
  
"You gonna get some lunch from Sam?"  
  
"No, I'm good. How's the speech coming?" CJ clicked something on her computer, typing furiously as she spoke.  
  
"It's coming," Toby lied.  
  
"That's a lie." CJ was always able to see straight through him. Toby realized he had no real reason to come and bother her other than asking about lunch. Just the vague feeling of listlessness and the urge to get up and talk to someone, anyone.  
  
Toby thought about Mom.  
  
Not his mom, rest her soul. He thought about 1998 and Andrea and the splotchy grey cat that came to their window every other day. Andrea called her "Mom" on account of her seeing the same cat on the street one day, trailed by identical grey kittens.  
  
\-----------------------------  
  
"She's gonna get fat if you keep giving her that stuff," Andy said.   
Toby set a bowl of shredded leftover chicken outside the door. Mom had run a few feet away as she always did when he fed her. It had been near a year and she still wouldn't let them come close to petting her, but it was an improvement from the skinny and skittish cat Toby first saw run away from the front yard.  
  
As soon as Toby closed the screen door, Mom ran to the bowl and started eating. He sat down on the floor, just a few inches away from her and separated only by glass and screen.  
  
"She deserves it, raising kids is not easy."  
  
"How would you know?" Andy raised her eyebrows. It was not supposed to be an accusation, and her lips turned in a smile, but it wormed into Toby and laid there just the same. He forced a smile and sipped his coffee. Not too hot, not too cold, just right.  
  
"Hey, Mama! Hey you!" Andy all but sang to her. She sat across from Toby on the floor, knees to her chest and both their feet touching. The sunlight fell in soft blankets over their skin and through the glass.  
  
Toby didn't often see the point in superfluous words, like 'sun-kissed' for example. He looked at Andy as she tapped the glass, speckled blue mug in hand and little rainbows playing against her shirt. Toby saw the point.  
  
The cat rubbed her head against the door, purring, and Toby pressed his palm to the warm morning glass.  
  
\-------------------  
  
"You're what?"  
  
"I said I'm getting a cat."  
  
CJ blinked and then furrowed her eyebrows in a smile. Then she started laughing, her exasperated and absurd laugh.  
  
"No seriously, what's up?" CJ wiped her eyes half for-real and a half in an addition to the flare of dramatics. She followed him to his office, Sam and Josh close in tow.  
  
"I'm sorry, are we having a meeting I wasn't aware of?" Toby grabbed the plastic container with his name written on it in Ginger's characteristic thin handwriting. He sat down at his desk, popping open the container and pressing a fork out of its plastic wrap. The plastic got caught on the tongs and he picked the strings off.  
  
Sam and Josh sat side by side on his couch, and CJ leaned against the wall by his bookshelf. They all unwrapped their respective lunches, salad containers balanced on knees, and sandwiches wrapped in plastic.  
  
"Did you know," Sam said opening up his salad, "that arugula has been eaten in the Mediterranean since the first century?"  
  
"Switch," Josh said, handing Sam his container. Sam looked back and forth between the two and nodded.  
  
"I think she does this just to mess with us," Josh complained. He handed Sam his container and Sam did the same.  
  
"The Romans ate it since the first century, and that's just the writing we have available," Sam continued unbothered.  
  
"Guys," CJ urged.  
  
Toby for one was glad to listen to Sam spout out information as an encyclopedia and Josh complain, but when did he ever get a say in what happened in his own office?  
  
"A cat?" Josh stabbed a few leaves and ate them with a frown.  
  
"A real, live, animal cat?" CJ adds. She unwrapped her sandwich and made her way over to the couch, sitting on the armrest.  
  
"Can't I get the rest of your dressing?" Josh whines at Sam.  
  
"It defeats the purpose of a salad if the ratio of salad to the ranch is one to one or greater than."  
  
"It tastes like dirt."  
  
"A real, actual, cat?" CJ says again. Sam did not give Josh his dressing.  
  
Toby twirled a piece of lettuce around his fork. He hadn't even really fully knew it until he said it to CJ in the hall on a whim. But now it seemed like something fully normal. Toby needed the speech by five, Toby was meeting in the Roosevelt room, Toby was getting a cat.  
  
"Yeah." Toby looked at them all one by one before taking a bite of his salad.  
  
"Okay." CJ nodded and took a bite of her sandwich.  
  
"Why?" Sam asked. He swiped away Josh's hand grabbing for his dressing. Sam threw it in the trash.  
  
"Sam!"  
  
"Josh," CJ warned.  
  
"I found it on the street and, I'm taking it in." Toby shrugged. The more he said it the more he grew into it. He'd always rolled with the punches of change pretty well, only this time he'd put himself in the ring. It was a good feeling, to do something instead of having things done to him. What was that thing in Latin? Non Ducor Duco.  
  
On second thought, there was the ever-present imprint of Everyone. That was The President in his head, no way Toby would ever willingly draw his life experience to a Latin motto.  
  
It was The President in his head speaking Latin. It was Sam in his head telling him to go three wikiHow's deep into taking care of a kitten. It was CJ in his head telling him to get guards for his furniture. It was Andy in his head that got him thinking about names.  
  
Toby swallowed another bite of the nameless salad and attempted to set aside the hook and claw thoughts of his wife. Ex-wife. Even after so long sometimes, not all the time, but once in a blue moon Toby caught himself doing that.  
  
"What's its name?" Josh asked.  
  
Toby shrugged again and waved his fork to demonstrate his lack of knowledge in the area.  
  
"You don't have a name for it?" CJ said.  
  
"I hadn't thought about it very much."  
  
"What's he look like?"  
  
Toby paused and considered.  
  
"Small. And exceedingly angry."  
  
"I meant-"  
  
Toby cut CJ off with a smirk.  
  
"I know what you meant. He's, orange I guess. With the little white paws." Toby held up his hands and wiggled his fingers as a demonstration.   
  
"Well, isn't that just adorable." CJ finished her sandwich and wraped up the paper into a ball. She tossed it into Toby's trashcan like it's a basketball, and it landed with a soft plop.  
  
"You could name it Dewey, like that library cat," Sam says.

  
A few seconds passed and Toby waited, staring at the top of Sam's head.  
  
"There's a cat that works in a library?" Josh asks.  
  
"Yeah, he hangs out there."  
  
"Where?" Josh had his eyebrows furrowed together like he was mulling over foreign trade memos.  
  
"Iowa," Sam shrugged like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Toby once again decided to pick and chose his battles. He liked to call them as such when in reality there was almost nothing he'd rather do every day than wake up before the world and go to war with these guys.  
  
"How do you know this?"  
  
"I watched the news once," Sam looked away from Josh and said to Toby instead, "The point is, you gotta name your cat, man. And you can't name it 'cat' or 'dog', that's cheating."  
  
"Not to mention plain wrong," Toby said.  
  
"What about Tigger? Like Winnie the Pooh?" CJ offered.  
  
"My aunt had an orange cat named Marmalade," Josh chimed in.  
  
Toby nodded in false thought. They sat in his office much longer than need be, as Sam crawled into his usual spot on Toby's couch with his old reliable legal pad and Josh worked on his laptop.  
  
"Don't you have your own offices?" Toby complained almost an hour later. CJ had long since left, prepping for the afternoon briefing. Toby wondered on some distant future and already blurry past where their lives didn't revolve around simultaneously executing one thing and prepping for another. The President would be giving his speech on Ethanol tonight, something not usually on Toby and Sam's radar but important enough now because someone somewhere had pissed off the farmers, and communications had only just polished that yesterday night. Here they were trudging through the mud on the Economic Mobility speech at the I-Can't-Remember convention a few weeks from now.  
  
Toby found himself realizing with startling clarity that he was tired. He loved this work more than anything in the world, but there was an abnormal heaviness in his chest that needed to be expunged, and fast, unless he really did want to kill himself in this office one day soon.  
  
"Yeah but your's has a couch," Sam retorts. Toby was reminded of himself at a much younger age, scrambling to be in his older sister's room because she had a record player and he loved to watch it spin.  
  
"What's your excuse?" Toby said to Josh. Toby had finally found something that would stick to the wall when thrown and ran with it. It would be a true miracle if these ideas survived the drafting and vetting. He knew they'd be shot dead out of the sky, but Sam held onto enough hope for the both of them.  
  
"Your's has Sam."  
  
"How is it you still have a job here?" Toby wrinkled his eyebrows at Josh. It was a personal feat that Toby was able to actually direct the movement at him.  
  
"I like to think," he said, "It's a mix of my boyish charm and charmingly boyish features." Josh dimpled in an example. Sam grinned sunbeams at him over his legal pad. Toby did not.  
  
"You two have half an hour before I call Ginger and tell her there's a security threat in my office."  
  
"Hey I'm working in here, we're working together!" Sam protested.  
  
"Show me what you've got."  
  
"Well," Sam stalled, "It's not quite there yet."  
  
"I do this for a living too, Sam. Give it here."  
  
Reluctantly, like a kid handing over a confiscated toy, Sam passed Toby his legal pad.  
  
"This is-" Toby paused.  
  
"This is good. That's alright. That's okay. And. . . that's a doodle of Winnie the Pooh and a dozen tiny suns."  
  
Josh snorted.  
  
"So let's circle back to the good part," Sam suggested.  
  
Toby, despite himself, let out a thin laugh and handed the legal pad back to Sam after marking up the fixable parts with a blue pen.  
  
"I'm serious, work or I'm kicking you both out. I gotta leave early anyway."  
  
"What for?" Josh said. Nosy. Toby didn't blame him, it was his job to know everything and plan for anything. Facts outside of his sphere of necessary knowledge were tossed away without so much as a second thought, and everything inside that globe was examined with a 400x lens. Toby, along with the rest of the senior staff, was not going to forget how last week Josh thought almond milk came from cows that only ate almonds.  
  
"I have to buy cat food."  
  
"You're serious?" Sam laughed.  
  
"That's it I'm kicking you out." Toby stood up and stretched his shoulders to show he was serious.  
  
"I want to make it known," Josh said gathering his things and pointing at Sam, "That you were the straw that broke our proverbial camel's back."  
  
Toby made little shoo-ing motions at them as if he was swatting flies. Sam tucked his pen behind his ear and sighed.  
  
"Camel's don't have backs, they're invertebrates," Sam lied.  
  
"Don't try that again, I know what a camel is. They've got the humps and everything." Josh gave Toby a wave- hand tilted and palm out like he was driving and signaling at a stoplight- and left his office. Filtered strings of their conversation got caught in Toby's door until they finally walked far enough away.  
  
"No, really, those are Caiman."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Swear."  
  
Toby stole a few seconds to look up 'caiman' on his computer. Images helpfully popped up of a small, crocodile-like reptile. Caimaninae. An alligatorid crocodilian, whatever that meant. Toby chuckled to himself as he closed the page.  
  
He spent the next two hours at work running on comfortable autopilot; reading memos, writing, editing, rewriting, and planning out work for the next day. The sun sank lower in the horizon and turned the sky and muted grey as Toby gathered up his things to go home. He'd scrawled an incomplete list on a post-it note of things to pick up at the nearest pet store.  
  
Toby realized as he shrugged on his coat and gave a thin smile to the security guards at the front entrance that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. It was not a completely alien feeling. He'd far passed the moment in his life where he'd learned just how unsure and fallible other people could be, and no matter how many years or miles he collected there would always be things he didn't know. Easy things, like what a caiman was. Harder things, like having no idea if their latest political ploy would pass with flying colors or blow up in their faces. Toby was no stranger to the clammy mud-stuck feeling in his chest that came when you worked your hardest at something and still didn't succeed.  
  
He hoped that an attempt at raising this cat wouldn't fail so spectacularly as to ruin him. He would buy the food, the litter box, the toys, and learn as much as he could. And if worst came to worst, there was no shortage of people in the greater D.C area willing to adopt a kitten.  
  
So why did the magnitude of this possibility of failure weigh so heavily in his chest?  
  
Toby loaded the bag of cat litter into his trunk, next to the litter box and the large container of dried food. The kitten on the box had long brown fur and possessed an air of grace the little devil Toby had taken in would never have.  
  
There was the list, items crossed off and checked twice. Food, litter, treats, toys, and a small bed with fish designs on it that Toby had a feeling would lie unused, in favor of his couch. The image of the cat curled up next to the armrest or sprawled out across the cushions brought a thin smile to Toby's lips as he drove home. Thank goodness there was nobody there to see him.  
  
\-------------------  
  
Two and a half hours passed in slow, broken drip as Toby stared at the manila envelope in front of him. The glass felt light in his hand, lighter than air, and he wondered if he hadn't fallen asleep at the table.  
  
Toby swirled and drank the last of his orange juice. It was lukewarm from sitting out for so long, and he winced. Alright, that was time enough. The clock over the couch ticked its long arms and read 8:34. He'd have to go to work at some point, if not today then early tomorrow. Leo could excuse today, they all would, but Toby didn't want to be alone in this house for longer than absolutely necessary.  
  
He'd opened the door, sunlight and warmth and crystalized rainbows pouring over the hardwood. Toby allowed himself a last glance at the empty space outside of it before opening the folder. The thin stack of papers held together with a red paperclip felt heavier than anything he'd held. This was for the best. This was coming a long time ago. This was talked about over and over, dragged through the mud and through the rocks until they'd both ended up bruised and sleepless. It was right, after everything.  
  
That didn't mean it no longer hurt.  
  
Textbooks from law school and objectively compiled notes flashed through his head as Toby unclipped the papers. He wouldn't file an appeal, and he already knew everything was accurate and in order. All that was left was to sign it. The blue ballpoint pen sat on top of his napkin, uncapped and waiting.  
  
Again Toby looked at the door. No one was there. The cat wasn't there. He had a sudden and impossible image of Andy taking the cat, scooping her up in her arms, and whisking her off along with that section of Toby's internal organs that he'd found missing these past months. That was impossible, though. She'd never do that, she'd never been able to do that. The cat was so skittish she never even let Toby touch her, and he was the one who fed her every morning for the past seven months.  
  
Picking up the pen, Toby signed the papers, here, here, and once more over there. His blue scrawled handwriting against the printed letters made the papers less real, more juvenile, and false. And yet here they were, final. Real, excessively real. Andrea's signature next to his. Maybe those words on paper were the closest they'd ever be again.  
  
"Where'd you go?" Toby said. He didn't know who he was talking about.  
  
Toby slipped the papers back in the envelope and went to sit next to the door. His legs ached from sitting still so long, and he stretched them out across the hardwood. It felt cool under his socked feet, hard under his legs, both real and not real.  
  
Pajamas loose over his shoulders. Palm on the glass, waiting. His eyes tired and stinging.   
  
Toby never saw the cat again.  
  
\-------------------  
  
Toby came home on Friday to find dirt scattered across his floor. After prolonged treatment for worms and getting spayed he'd taken the cat home a handful of days later than expected. He had begun to warm up to him, though slowly. Toby was often allowed a few seconds of petting him, a hand over his back or a scratch beside his ear. He'd taken to sitting next to him as he ate, placing a hand on the floor closer and closer but never once taking or touching. Every morning, noon, and night the cat ate like he had the very first night as if he'd been starving and left in the cold. That most recent Wednesday was the very first time the cat had allowed Toby to pick him up. Toby held him on his chest, a replayed Yankees game on the TV, and half a slice of turkey for the cat to eat. And then the cat stayed there, napping in a curve the size of a baseball.  
  
Toby decided to name him Garfield.  
  
"What have you done now?" Toby mused as he kicked off his shoes. Garfield was nowhere to be seen, but he'd come. He usually greeted him after work, pouncing at his feet to play or meowing for food.  
  
"Come on, where are you, you little monster." Toby hung up his coat and picked up bits of clutter as he went. A newspaper here, a plate here, a water bottle there. CJ and the others would be there soon, a rare occurrence. Toby had ostensibly left the office early to feed the cat before they came, but the equally true hidden reason was to tidy up, both his own mess and Garfield's inevitable one.  
  
The monster in question came running from the bedroom, unaware or refusing to acknowledge the spray of dirt across the floor and his rosemary plant tipped over. Some of the sprigs had been clawed up and eaten halfway, the others chewed on. Garfield tracked the dirt on his paws, ignorant.  
  
"You've eaten my rosemary," Toby said. He picked up Garfield with both hands, holding him under his front legs and staring at him. The cat squirmed and meowed, but didn't bite.  
  
"This is a trespass I cannot forgive."  
  
Garfield growled, though not with malice. He squirmed again and Toby let him down. He had the nerve to trot back to the rosemary and try eating it again.  
  
Toby swatted him away and began to clean up the mess. The plant was salvageable if he pulled out some of the half-dead ones. Garfield had grown steadily in the past three weeks, and although Toby was building the plane as he flew it, he knew eating rosemary by the sprig was probably not good for the health of a kitten.  
  
"Get out of there, come on."  
  
Garfield refused to leave until Toby tossed him a toy, his current favorite. The feather on a stick and the multiple toys with bells and ribbons lay discarded and unused in favor of a ball of aluminum foil.  
  
Chasing and batting the ball around the room, Garfield finally left Toby alone to clean up. He'd find a way to fix the rosemary like he fixed the Tupperware and the lamp and the candle. Despite all the messes and all the changes to his everyday life-changing where he put his glasses, leaving the tables spotless, waking up in the middle of the night, cat food, and makeshift toys spread out- Toby seldom found it truly annoying. A glass broken was replaced, and soon Toby learned to play with him instead and move the breakable items off high places. Sometimes Garfield woke Toby up in the middle of a bad dream, a comforting presence, and a problem to be solved. He wants attention, he wants to play, he wants more water, he wants more food. And Toby would solve them and fall back asleep all the better for it.  
  
"Will you promise to behave yourself when we have company?" Toby tossed around the foil ball. Garfield's eyes grew big as he lunched for it, collar jingling.  
  
"CJ's not fond of cats, so you'll have to work extra hard on her. She's off-limits for fighting, you hear me?" Toby swept up the dirt and moved the plant back to its spot by the window. It would recover. Hopefully.  
  
Toby heard them before he saw them. His slipped open window let in the fresh air and the sounds of the city, which included at this moment the unmistakable sound of Donna and Josh bickering. The quality of their words was unknown, though there was no doubt they'd get to the door of his apartment still chewing each other out and Toby would have an abundance of time to find out why.  
  
He was uncharacteristically nervous as he grabbed Garfield and set him on the couch. Toby could count the number of times he'd had people over to his place on one hand. Hosting and mingling and the like had always been Andy's thing, and it left him with a hollowness that was not painful so much as vaguely uncomfortable.  
  
His door buzzed once, and then twice, then again. Three presses in quick succession that told him it was Sam leading the charge.  
  
"What's the password?" Toby said into the intercom.  
  
"We brought beer," came Josh's static voice.  
  
Toby buzzed them in.  
  
They had brought beer, among other spoils. Sam brought the bottles in small cases, held in both hands. CJ came next holding the Chinese takeout, Donna with a bottle of wine, and Josh holding-  
  
A plant?  
  
"Is that a-"  
  
"It's for the cat?" The sentence was a statement but Josh spoke it as a question, lilting upwards and confused.  
  
"It's for the cat," Sam said. So this was Sam's doing.  
  
The creature in question lied crouched on the couch, curled in between the dip in the cushions and legs ready to leap. Toby recognized the emotion with an odd pang in his chest, even if he knew it was silly to fear these people. He was scared.  
  
"He's already gotten into everything I own so," Toby trailed off and helped CJ unload the takeout. They'd all been here before, even if it was just once, and there was no need for Toby to point out the obvious, the 'hang your coat here, on the visible hooks' or 'put your shoes here, on the mat' or 'here's the kitchen and the table' because there everything was.  
  
"Cat grass. It's supposed to be good for them. I got it at the pet store, vitamins and nutrients, and longevity." Sam set the small plant, which looked like a potted chunk of grass, against the wall next to the couch.  
  
"Eat your greens," Donna said.  
  
Garfield eyed them all suspiciously before he dashed to the plant. All eyes were on him. Toby was reminded awkwardly of being at a baby-related party, the main entertainment the minute actions of whatever the kid was doing, like trying to eat it's own hands or rolling across the floor.  
  
"You're sure it's good for him?" Toby asked. He wrote their names on the otherwise indistinguishable takeout containers in sharpie. Sesame chicken (himself), mushroom chicken (CJ), Vegetable lo mein (Sam), Eggrolls (everyone), Potstickers (Josh, but also inevitably Sam), etcetera etcetera.  
  
"You're actually worried about him, that's so sweet," Donna cooed at the cat as he gnawed loudly on the grass. The plant was taller than he was, and he reached out a paw to pull at the grass. The entire thing toppled over, and Garfield leaped back. Everyone but Toby 'aw'-ed at him.  
  
"You're silly, aren't you?" Sam reached down to right the plant again.  
  
"Here, lemme-"  
  
"I wouldn't do that if I-"  
  
Neither Sam nor Toby got to finish their sentences. As Sam reached a hand close to Garfield, he jumped backward and hissed, fur standing up and legs trembling.  
  
"Woah!"  
  
Sam jumped back as Toby stepped forward.  
  
"You know what, I don't think he likes you very much," CJ said. She scribbled a name on another container and set to work on a beer  
.  
"He's just scared," Toby muttered. There was the sudden feeling of also being on display as he picked up the plant and Garfield clawed onto his leg. This was why he'd fully given up wearing any shorts around the house, opting for long pajama pants even on warmer nights.  
  
"You said you found him on the streets?" Donna tilted her head and started at Garfield, still firmly attached to Toby's leg. Toby nodded. Garfield growled. Donna grinned.  
  
"A ferocious little beast," She said.  
  
Josh laughed. Sam still looked a little hurt that Garfield had lashed out at him. Toby felt like a parent apologizing for a rowdy kid at the park.  
  
Toby shook his leg and clicked his tongue at the cat. He did not move.  
  
"He's only semi-feral. He's real skittish though," Toby said, for Sam's benefit. With another shake, the cat finally let his leg go. He ran straight into the plant, knocking it over again, and then scuttling under the couch.  
  
"Well," CJ said, holding out a beer for Toby and Donna.  
  
"That man is not well." Donna accepted the beer and took a sip from it.  
  
"What did you say his name was?" Josh asked. He passed Donna her container and a pair of disposable chopsticks.  
  
"I don't know how to use these and you know that," She grumbled.  
  
"Then it's time to learn Donnatella. You're in the big city now."  
  
"I hate you."  
  
  
"Play nice." Sam gave her a plastic fork.  
  
"Thank you, Samuel."  
  
"It's Garfield." Toby opened up his beer and took a swig. The bottle was cool in his hand, flecks of moisture over its neck from being carried outside.  
  
Josh blinked at him, a dimpled smile creeping up his face and pure mischief in his eyes.  
  
"Like the cartoon?" He asked.  
  
"No, like the president."  
  
Toby picked up the grass again, thanking Sam, and they fell into the predictable rhythm of talking shop. Two beers in Toby got out a deck of cards and they pushed their half-eaten containers of rice and noodles and wontons to the edges of the table.  
  
"Here," Toby slid the cards to Sam, "You deal first."  
  
"Do the little trick thing!" Josh nudged Sam with his shoulder.  
  
Toby rose as Sam launched all too happily, after another prompt from Donna, into a long-winded explanation on poker and magic and card tricks. Their voices and laughter followed him as he walked to the living room and put more food in Garfield's bowl. Like clockwork, the cat emerged from under the couch and attacked the bowl.  
  
"You're welcome," Toby mumbled.  
  
It was odd, looking back on the last three weeks, how similar and different the days were to each other. Work was the dependably inconsistent-constant, the same series of unexpected collisions and messes to freak out over. The same long hours, and of course the same people. But instead of coming home to plants and silence, Toby was greeted by the ring of a collared bell and cat fur on his pants. No matter the hour, Toby could count on Garfield to greet him at the door with a meow and a plea for more food. On particularly bad days when Toby indulged himself two or three fingers of whiskey, he awarded the cat a small handful of treats.  
  
"He freaks me out."  
  
CJ stood near the doorway, leaning on the wall with her gaze fixed on Garfield. The cat made no notice of her, loudly eating his food and occasionally sticking his paws in it.  
"Freaks me out too sometimes," Toby said truthfully.  
  
CJ stared out the window and Toby followed her gaze. It was the same view he saw every night, the residential buildings of DC mired in grey darkness and dotted with artificial lights.  
  
"Never thought of you as a pet person," CJ said, "Or a cat person. Or a people person."  
  
Toby shrugged. She was right in all of her assumptions, and he couldn't fully explain why he liked this cat so much, or why he seemed to like Toby in return.  
  
Garfield finished eating and pushed his head against Toby's leg. With careful hands, Toby picked him up and curled the cat to his chest.  
  
Toby opted to just tell CJ the truth, even if he didn't know the full extent of it. Attachment and permanence were so unstable and foreign to him, and yet in a month, he felt strangely protective over this crazy cat. And logically he wouldn't have to lose him or fear losing him, not for at least a decade. Toby wasn't scared of death, for himself, or the concept as applied. It happened. He just hated when it didn't come at the appointed time, lives changed or taken sooner than they should be, faster than they should be, until you're in a hospital room wondering if people close to you are going to leave forever.  
  
"I found him," Toby said. This was known, however, and not the full truth. It was silly of him to be so emotional over a cat, yet here he was. CJ fixed her gaze on him instead of the window and nodded, slow.  
  
"He would have died if I didn't find him then and there and do something about it."  
  
"But he didn't," CJ said immediately.  
  
They were not talking about the cat any more.  
  
"He could have. He was going to." Toby's voice was rough and low, something brimming over the edge of it.  
  
CJ nodded again, her shoulders shrugging as she worked with her thoughts. She took a breath and flattened her lips in a curved and soft smile.  
  
"But he didn't."  
  
Toby nodded and passed the cat to her, wrapping a single hand around his body and holding him out like a file to be shared.  
  
CJ laughed, a sound that reminded him of cream soda, and held her hands up in defense.  
  
"No thank you, like I said I don't do well with cats."  
  
"He'll like you," Toby said. Garfield himself, already bored, wriggled from his hand and jumped in a twisting fury to the floor. CJ yelped before he ran into the next room.  
  
"They land on their feet."  
  
"Yeah, I got that just now."  
  
They returned to the dining table turned poker table, and to Toby's surprise, Garfield was lurking under his chair, as much as a small three-pound ball of orange static could lurk.  
  
"Someone decided to visit us," Donna said. She made little kissing noises at the cat, who regarded her with a tilted head.  
  
Toby picked him up again as he sat down.  
  
"He's a terrible co-host, excuse him." Garfield squirmed in his hands and then jumped onto the table, regarding the wide expanse of cards and drinks and takeout boxes.  
  
"Nah, he's the only reason we came here," Josh said. The cat walked towards Josh, and Toby did not miss the curve of a smile over his face, before diverting to his takeout container.  
  
"Why you little-" Josh reached out to stop him right as Garfield attempted to jump into his food. The cat meowed high and drawn-out, sounding like a true cry. This earned a steady laugh from everyone at the table as Toby sipped his beer.  
  
"You know what, I side with Sam now," Josh said as Garfield returned to his slice of the table, unperturbed and ready to try once more to steal either Josh or Sam's food.  
  
"Thank you!"  
  
"Oh come on guys, he-"  
  
Garfield nudged Josh's beer bottle a slide closer to the edge of the table.  
  
"You are a terrible little man," Josh said. A smile opened over his face.  
  
Toby caught CJ's eyes across the table and took a glance at his cards. Two eights. He could work with that.


End file.
